Tecumseh Lake

Tecumseh Lake was created as a way to bring additional drinking water to the village while also bridging the religious divides between Shawnee’s Catholic and Methodist populations. In the early 1950s Father Michael Wellnitz of St. Mary’s Catholic Church and Methodist minister and village mayor William Schuster rallied their respective congregations and got together to construct a dam across a stream just south of town. Tecumseh Lake and the park were dedicated in April of 1952 and serves as a recreational hub for the area currently. Before the dam was constructed with all volunteer labor, this was the former site of the XX Mine. The dam followed the railroad bed. The XX Mine, in 1882, employed 70 miners and 7 daymen, it was operated by the Newark Coal & Iron Company. The site best exemplifies the area’s shift from an extractive resource-based economy to a more centralized effort to conserve the land and bring the natural environment back to its original state. Visitors to the lake can enjoy the natural beauty of the Wayne National Forest through hiking the Buckeye Trail and North Country Scenic Trail, as they are accessible from Tecumseh Lake.